Order with a clerk, please call the roll.

Council President Proton Coleman A Young the second.

Here.

Councilmember Scott Benson.

Councilmember Renata Miller.

Here.

Mr.

Church, you have a form present.

All right, excellent.

Is there a motion to approve the minutes?

Motion.

Motion's been made.

Are any objections?

Hearing none.

The minutes are approved.

All right.

We will now go negative chair remarks.

We will go to public comment.

How many people do we have in person who want to give public comment?

We see one person.

I don't see anyone else.

Going once, going twice, going three times, gone.

All right, Mr.

Foster.

Come on up here.

You here two minutes, sir.

Oh, good afternoon through the chair.

First off, it's good to see you all.

I've been in this meeting at some time.

But I did want to take some time out today.

A veteran asked me if I still come down and he needed some assistance.

77-year-old Vietnam veteran disabled, living in the Boston Edison area, two blocks from Boston, 48202.

The issue that you have is with coercive enforcement.

And I agree that we have to deal with our elderly and our vulnerable in a more better fashion.

He has a container in his backyard.

It's been there for eight years.

No issues at all.

Is in lieu of a garage.

Somebody came and left a card telling them that he had to move it within 10 days or pay a thousand dollar fine a week.

No, uh no process, no hearing, no consideration of age or disability in these processes.

And so I'm asking that BC um have a cease and desist letter until this party can find an equitable ground for the enforcement in our communities and particularly with our vulnerable and our citizens and more particularly with our veterans that have served this nation.

Right.

And so that's um what I did want to speak on.

And then to add insult to injury, I enjoy downtown.

I enjoy being on Peterborough.

I go down to the comedy club down there.

And it's a container factory.

It's built out of containers, right?

And sitting down there, somebody somehow they got uh opportunity to do business there, but then they would come in the community and find ways to penalize our community for the same things that they allow downtown or in the midgrade.

So it's a hypocrisy until there's some equality there, or like a formal cease and desist letter until we can get those things situated.

Thank you very much for your time.

All right, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Next in the queue.

Mr.

Bo.

Mr.

Bo, who do we have next to the queue?

Mr.

Chair, we currently have 11 hands raised for public comment.

All right, public comment is now closed.

Public comment is now closed.

Public comment is now closed.

All right, who do we have first in the queue?

Mr.

Chair, the first caller is William M.

Davis.

All right, Mr.

Davis, floor is yours.

Two minutes.

Uh good afternoon.

Can I be heard?

Yes, sir.

Two minutes.

Okay, I like to start off by saying, I'm sorry I missed your meeting.

I had a couple of city retirees that was there and they enjoyed it, but I had an emergency come up.

I frequently enjoy going to your meetings.

Also, I think the city should be doing more as related to tree service.

As it relates to dangerous trees that's over people's property, and also trees on the burn.

Um, and that's all I have to say for that.

Y'all have a good day.

Well, thank you, sir.

We appreciate that.

And hopefully you come to the next meeting.

Uh, who do we have in the queue?

Mr.

Bo.

Mr.

Chair, the next caller is Betty A.

Verner.

All right, Miss Varner, the floor is yours.

Two minutes, Ms.

Verner.

Good afternoon to all within the sound of my voice.

I'm Betty A.

Varner, president of the Soda Elseworth Block Association.

We have partnered with the MySEPS Vision Doctors.

We are having a health fair this Saturday, April 18th, from 10 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

We will be offering free eye exams and eye screenings for anyone that comes through the door.

You do not just have to be a city resident.

You can live in the suburbs, Highland Park, wherever.

If you need these services, please come again from 10 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

DMC will be offering health services.

There will be the uh health screenings also done by the Detroit Community Health Connections Incorporating.

Again, all these services are free for adults and children at the at the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 7-1-5-1 Finco Avenue, the corner of Monica, a couple of blocks west of Livernoise.

Again, 7-151co Avenue at the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, April 18th from 10 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

Free for anyone who comes through the door, adults and children.

There will be some free glasses also available.

I'm not gonna say they're gonna have everybody's prescription, but they will be some glasses available.

So please come to the corridor that I'm always talking about.

And we still need help.

We need money for our corridor.

We want uh our corridor to be uh treated as other corridors throughout the city of Detroit who have received uh monies for redevelopment and to help bring business come to the area.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Barner.

We appreciate you.

Who here next to the queue?

The next caller ends in 039.

All right, 039, floor is yours, two minutes.

039.

What's happening, man?

Black bag.

Black bag road.

You know, man, Mr.

Road, Mr.

Overwatch.

And you gotta understand this Coleman clearly.

Your dad was somebody I had a lot of respect for.

But you are public official, and I can prove it and demonstrate it.

All y'all cheating in.

Jenny's been cheating in the lecture, I believe, for 15 years.

Well, I can only prove since 2020.

Now I didn't gave the information to Donald Trump, got it directly to him.

So he got it.

But he came down in the Michigan and went over in the Western district.

See, we over in the Eastern District.

He went in the Western district and found way more than what Ramon Jackson and me of covered discovered and Ramon followed through and found this Alpha Davis, man.

Alphabetis from about 46 people saying that they did not vote in the election.

They show up on the voting road.

Now I'm gonna switch it to this commander of the Detroit Police Department's homicide unit because Nini won't what the F she won't.

Now, Rebecca McKay got him the way.

He was in Bob Carmack's way, now I see Nini's way, and I'm missing root.

I don't know if you understand it clearly, but I give zero else about any of y'all or any of that.

All I care about is what Nini asked for, requested, and deserved.

Now I'm gonna demonstrate to y'all exactly who I am.

Who different ball game now?

So I'm outside, outside, outside with it.

But uh dad had much respect for me.

You don't.

All right, thank you, sir.

Who's next in the queue?

The next caller is Cicely McCullum.

All right, Ms.

McCullin.

Floor is yours, two minutes.

Thank you for this opportunity.

I just want to uh raise up the honorable john Watson, who is having Harry Street signage uh meeting uh celebration tomorrow.

Uh it will be held at Central High School 2425 Tuxedo.

As we many know, Joanne Watson was responsible for the radio program Wake Up Detroit and also the TV program.

She was the people's council person.

She ensured when the residency was removed.

She uh passed the ordinance called Domicile Credit, which gave any Detroit that passed the city test uh an opportunity to get 15 additional points.

She also uh supported and put uh the Donwan Detroit residential water affordable party ability program to prevent shutoff for low income.

She uh was uh in the vanguard for the reparations of uh for residents of the United States and the city of Detroit.

She has been uh a leader in many aspects throughout the United States.

She also worked on Canyon's uh recognized office on the reparations study.

She um uh was instrumental in presenting the African town recommendation, and she recognized the city of Detroit with a major majority African American population, should have an African town.

Uh we have a Mexican town and we have a Chinatown.

So you would just believe that we would have an African town.

So this uh celebration uh is going to be held tomorrow between two and four, and it is going to be a festive occasion.

We encourage all that support and recognize the commitment that uh the honorable joint watson gave to the city of Detroit to come out and celebrate tomorrow between two and four.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

I just want to say I got my start uh from the honorable Joanne Watson, and she paid me directly out of her campaign funds, which is something that's very rare for any elected official to do.

So I got my start in the city council uh working under the honorable Joanne Watson first, and then I went to research analysis division.

So she will truly be missed, and she totally deserves a street and anything else we can name and give to her and her family for her services and contributions.

Words can I express how thankful we all are to her.

Who is next in the queue, Mr.

Bo?

The next caller, just please stop the garbage mowing.

All right, go ahead, floor is yours.

Two minutes.

Yes, ma'am, be heard.

Yes, you may, two minutes.

Yeah, so for years I've been uh telling different uh about is of the city council about the constant garbage mowing, the city keeps hiring pain.

I've got photos of them mowing over garbage, the favored North End landing developers that have caused so much division in my community and planned in secret, didn't care about us.

They hire these tattooed Latino guys.

I don't care if they're tattooed and Latino, but you know what they do constantly, they move over garbage, sheets of glass, um metal bottles.

I sent photos to the district five manager Keith Booth to Paris Blessman of Sheffield's office last year.

Nothing happens, nothing happens.

And why is it that these same developers that get to mow over garbage and leave garbage?

Why, Member Young, do they get to have that building that you or member Miller or both finally got them to board it up?

But they have no vacant building certificate.

They have peeling paint, they don't they have debris on the property still, not all their windows are boarded up.

They've got another property with peeling paint boarded windows, no vacant building certificate, but the land bank doesn't harass them.

So, member Miller, I'd like to talk to you personally and share with you stories about how the land bank treats people here disparately, and despite the numerous emails or public comments I make, the rest of this body just well, member Waters cares, doesn't care about this stuff.

And I will show you in the intergovernmental agreement where it specifically says the land banks are not allowed to do stuff that are not allowed to do under uh state law, they're not allowed to do eminent domain or condemnation.

But you you let these north end landing developers get away with stuff, but you let them take all right, thank you for that.

Who next in the queue, Mr.

Bo?

Mr.

Chair, the next caller, is owner Papa.

All right, floor is yours, two minutes.

Good afternoon, and through the chairman.

I'd be heard.

Yes, you may two minutes.

Yes, Ms.

Warwick brings up a great point about how you it's allowed to happen in this city.

People just give us anything, and we're supposed to accept it, and that's because you accept just anything from the contractors and from the people.

So consequently, we have to suffer.

Mr.

Uh Foster was absolutely correct.

And it is disparity, just as Warwick and Mr.

Foster pointed out to you.

It's disparity the way the city is run and the how it's divided up and how some have things and others don't.

This is a Jim Crow, Sundown, whatever you want to call it, but it's lacking back to days that we don't want to go back to.

But it's a crying shame that we have people like Miss Bent Mr.

Benson on the panel, uh, who promotes uh weed shops, but pretends to care about your children.

There was a there was a request for missing persons with the process.

They still has still hasn't been answered, and every time he wants to pump money into vacant buildings, he tells about a vacant building and where children can be snatched.

You guys, this is the Rubin effect.

You guys are absolutely insane.

You're insane as to how you spend our money, how you delegate what you do.

Um, we're we're caring about a parking lot now that has, I guess, asphalt over it.

We did we're digging it up, trying to pretend as though it is a hazardous site where we have dirty dirt all over the city.

Uh you're you're over the neighborhoods committee.

Why your hair ought to be on fire?

You ought to be on top of this.

Summer is coming.

These things aren't even properly covered.

And it and and you're dragging your feet, but spending our money at rocket speed.

Something is wrong with this picture.

Something is wrong with this group.

I have no idea if somebody hasn't come down and some done something to your minds, because if you think this is not, if you think you're doing a good job, there's something wrong.

All right, thank you for that.

Who do we have next to the queue?

Mr.

The next caller is Tyson Gersh.

All right, Mr.

Gersh, floor is yours.

Two minutes.

Hi, thanks.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, two minutes.

Great, thank you.

Um, this isn't necessarily related to the any of the items on today's uh agenda, but I just city council's really gotta get a hold of the law department.

Um, you know, this has been an issue historically where the mayor's office through the law department seems to have control of the entire city, and this was intentionally addressed um by the Charter Revision Committee and City Council previously when they moved the law department out of the mayor's office, um, or out of whatever it's called the executive branch and made it its own kind of independent entity.

Um, but like it's still happening.

Um there's supposed to be a separation of powers.

The mayor shouldn't control the entire city.

No one person should dictate all of municipal government.

Um we also really need to address the FOIA issue.

I mean, like this whole, oh my god, there's so many FOIAs, we don't have enough staff.

Like it's a ridiculous and untrue narrative.

Um the law department's just out of control.

It's out of control.

And you are hearing about how out of control it is from a lot of your citizens, a lot of the taxpayers of the city, and nobody's addressing it.

I don't know what Mr.

Mallet, what kind of dirt he's got on all of you, but you know it shouldn't matter, you know.

Like you shouldn't have you want a corruption-free city, you gotta clean it up.

People, put the public should have access to public documents, especially documents that their tax dollars paid for.

This this just it's a like I can't believe I even have to say this out loud.

Um, you guys should know this.

You've got to address it.

This is ridiculous.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Who here next to the queue, Mr.

Bow.

The next caller is Gwendolyn Howard.

All right, Miss Howard.

Floor is yours, two minutes.

Howard going once.

Ms.

Howard going twice.

Howard going three times.

Ms.

Howard going three times in a third.

All right, thank you very much, Ms.

Howard.

We appreciate you.

You can submit your comments in writing.

The last caller before you close public comment is iPhone.

All right, iPhone, floor is yours, two minutes.

Uh I want to commend Tyson.

He's right on.

We should have a transparent government.

And my favorite program is on point, as you know, on point WBUR to it's on our radio 7 to 8 at night at 101.9 WDET National Public Radio.

Well, they uh that's a very good program.

And they put their transcripts of their podcasts there up online.

We could do the same.

And you know, they have a program a couple days ago.

If you can go back and go to all their past shows, and there's one about uh lottery and government.

And I read about this years ago.

I think it's a good idea.

We randomly select people to serve us, say for 12 months or two years.

Whatever we want to decide, we can experiment and see what works best.

These citizens, well, they're not politicians, they're just people like Tyson and myself or whoever else, um, you know, uh all the rest of the people in the city, Carol Hughes.

Hopefully, if we're randomly selected, we could help serve.

But I have more confidence and getting the money out of politics and getting the politicians and getting all the people paying you and putting money into your coffers, and then you're influenced by that.

You can't help but be because the way our system is set up, you gotta have money or you can't win.

So we need to get the money out of politics.

We need approval voting.

The Democratic Party Convention is Sunday.

Go down there at one at the Renaissance next Sunday and try and and see if we can get some more uh sanity for Detroit and Michigan government because it it's uh not good government.

We've got to experiment and and uh make our democracy better.

There's lots of room for improvement.

All right, thank you.

We appreciate that.

Who have next to the queue?

Mr.

Chair, that was the last public caller.

All right, thank you very much.

We will now go to unfinished business.

Uh my office has been in communication with council member McCampbell's office, and they are okay to receive and file line item 5.1.

Do I have a motion to receive and file line item 5.1?

Motion.

Motion's been made.

Are there any objections?

Here in the line of 5.1 will be received and filed.

New business.

Mayor's office, submitting resolution.

Authorization of petition to Detroit Greek Independence Day Committee request to hold Detroit Greek Independence Day parade from May the 3rd, 2026 at 3 p.m.

to 8 p.m.

the same day at Greek Town.

Setup will begin on May 3rd, 2026 at 8 a.m.

and be completed by 12 p.m.

the same day.

Tear down will begin on May 3rd, 2026 at 8 p.m.

and complete by 10 p.m.

the same day.

Is there a motion to move line of 6.1 to formal session with recommendations for approval be put on to new business?

Motion.

Motion made our objections here in the lineup 6.1.

We move the formal session with recognition for approval.

We put on to new business.

Line on 6.2 petition of the people for Palmer Park to request the Palmer Park Art Fair from June 6th, 2026 today to June 7, 2026 at 5 p.m.

at Palmer Park.

Setup will begin on June 5th, 2026 at 8 a.m.

and be completed by June 6th, 2026 at 10 a.m.

Tear down will begin on June 7th, 2026 at 5 p.m.

and complete by 9 p.m.

the same day.

Oh sorry.

Is there a motion to move line of 6.1 to formal session with a recognition for approval be put on to new business?

Motion.

Motion made are any objections.

Here in the lineup 6.2 be moved to formal session with recommendations for approval, be put on to new business.

Line on 6.3.

Petition of the Boulevard.

Oh, I hope I don't butcher this.

Harambi request to hold the silence to violence rally on June 6, 2026 to 10 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

the same day at 231 East Grand Boulevard.

Setup will begin on 9 a.m.

on June 6th, 2026, complete by 10 a.m.

the same day.

Tear down begin at 2 p.m.

on June 6th, 2026, complete by 3 p.m.

the same day.

Is there a motion to move line on 6.3 to formal session with recognition for approval?

You put on to new business.

Motion.

Motion made or any objections.

Here in the line 6.3, we move the formal session with recognition for approval.

We put on to new business.

Line 6.4.

Petition of Bedrock Detroit to request Nick Gilbert Way Summer Activations from May 17, 2026 at 12 p.m.

to September 30th, 2026 at 6 p.m.

at Nick Gilbert Way.

Setup will begin on May 11, 2026 at a.m.

and completed by May 17th, 2026 at 12 p.m.

teardown will begin October 1st 2026 at 8 a.m.

It'd be completed by October 9th, 2026 at 4 p.m.

Is there a motion?

Is there a motion to move line of 6.4 to formal session with recommendation for approval new business?

Motion.

Motion's been made.

All right.

We will now move on to member reports.

Chair recognizes Vice Chairman Benson.

All right, thank you.

Just a last reminder.

We are having our annual Green Task Force Awards Breakfast this Saturday at the People's Co-op on Woodward Avenue, 10 a.m.

to noon.

We have a great breakfast every year.

And we happily and strongly encourage everyone to attend as well as have a great opportunity to recognize our sustainability warriors practitioners throughout the city of Detroit.

And so hopefully see everybody there.

10 a.m.

to noon.

Grits and eggs will be served.

Excellent.

Member Miller.

Thank you, President Pro Tim.

District 5.

We're up next tonight is our mandated chartered meeting with our Madam Mayor Sheffield and Resource Fair.

I encourage all residents to come out sometime between 5 30 and 7 and receive the resources that's going to be available.

And also there will be staff on call there from the city that can answer any of your questions regarding various departments.

Starting at approximately 7 to 8 30, our mayor will be bringing her agenda.

I encourage everyone that has questions, answers, and would like to be heard to attend.

That is tonight from 5 30 to 7 for the resources.

And 7 to 8:30 to hear Madame Mayor and her speech regarding District 5.

Do not think this is just a meeting.

This is access and accountability and action.

Please show up.

Be on time and be prepared to engage in this important meeting in District 5.

Thank you, President Pro Tim.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And uh I just wanted to take this moment to say thank you to my best friend, my confidant, and someone who has sacrificed everything for me to have everything that I am, everything that I hold, everything that I've become, everything that I will become is because of this person.

I want to give a very special happy birthday to my aunt Mary Ann Lee.

And without objection, neighborhood and community service standing committee will now stand adjourned.